Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door….

Here's me right before I went to the operating room on 8/22/10.

It’s really not funny. You see, I almost died a week ago. It was surreal lying in the back of an ambulance being transported to Good Sam Hospital. As I was wheeled thru the ER I looked at my mom and said, “I feel like I’m in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.”

She smiled. The hot EMT (yes hot) pushing me thru the ER smiled and said, “But without all the drama.” Hmm…I beg to differ. Maybe I should start at the beginning.

So I was being a complete raging bitch. In looking back it makes sense, I mean, my hormones were completely messed up. Not to mention we all know I’m not right to begin with. The kid threw up on my Juicy Couture jammies. Then she wouldn’t fall asleep. Then her fussiness turned into crying which turned into all out screaming. At that point I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m in tears and can’t believe how frustrated I’m getting with my child. I knew a meltdown was coming on. When my hubby got home from work I handed him the kid and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. That is…until I saw the look on my husband’s face.

“Good morning!” I said. He scowled at me. “What’s your problem?” (Geez, don’t you just love when you’ve been up for all of 2 minutes and they’re crabby already?)

“My problem?” He asked. (Oh the drama). “My problem is that I didn’t get any sleep last night because I was up all night with the baby.”

Side note – I was sympathetic until I found out that “all night” was for two feedings. Who does he think is up with the baby every night? He’s lucky I didn’t punch him.

Anyways, this did not start our Saturday out right and the refreshed mommy quickly turned back into the hormonal raging bitch I’d been. Tears running down my face I yelled, “I can’t do this today!”

I texted my BFF, GG: I don’t want to be married anymore.
Her quick response: I’m picking you up and we’re running to the store.

My stepmom had offered to watch Eva for the day so I decided to take her up on her offer. I handed my husband the kid and instructed him to drop her off. I jumped in the shower, boy was I ready for a mommy day.

GG showed up 30 minutes later and said, “I’m hung over; I need food. Where do you want to go?”

“Any where that serves wine,” I said, and we settled on Buona Beef (who knew they servedPinot Grigio?) because her ass needed some grease.

After lunch we hit the mall. I have to say it was just the afternoon a new mommy needs. I came home tired, buzzed and much happier. I passed out in bed. Ironically, I remember thinking “I don’t care if I even wake up.” My excuse is that exhaustion was setting in.

Three hours later I woke up and my hubby took me to dinner (at Baker’s Square – I know, but it’s seriously one of my faves!) and then we picked up the kid from my stepmom. The ride home I felt tired and crampy. We pulled in the driveway and as I got out of the car I felt like I peed my pants.

Not again!!!! I thought and looked down to find blood dripping down my leg. I’ll save you from the details of the next hour, as it consisted of blood pouring out of my vag. What. The. Fuck. It was scary. Eventually I started getting light-headed and had to lie on the bathroom floor. It looked like a slasher movie in my tiny bathroom, complete with me lying on the floor with no pants on.

My mom walked in my house to a screaming baby (bottle time) while I groaned on the bathroom floor. My cramps were so intense it was almost like I was having contractions. My hubby was making Eva a bottle and my mom ran to the bathroom.

“Oh honey,” she said, as she wiped up her grown daughter. The blood was still dripping out. We had already determined we were going to the ER, and now we were waiting for my stepmom to come pick up Eva. How ironic that she offered to have a sleep over with Eva, and I just couldn’t do it with her being one month old that very day.

I started to get weak after all the blood loss, and we called 911. Because no pads could soak up the amount of blood coming out of me we literally put a towel on me like a diaper (but not a hand towel. No, a BODY towel) and put on an XL pair of hospital pants I happened to have acquired in high school and kept all these years. (I know, random.) Thank God they were XL because nothing else would have fit over my diapered ass. I laid down on the couch with what appeared to be a ginormous engorged penis in my pants. Like that is not embarrassing enough, seriously, within minutes the ambulance is outside our house. My husband wonders what the neighbors will think…I worry about our messy house…and both my moms are yelling, “Who cares!” as my lips are turning white.

Worry about the mess in my living room? How about the zit on my face. How about the ENGORGED PENIS IN MY PANTS when OMG but the McSteamy of firemen walk into my house one after another like clowns piling out of a VW Bug. I’m not even joking, there was like 6 HOT firemen/EMT dudes in my house. I could have died right there of embarrassment.

My blood pressure was so low that it took them some time to start an IV. As I lay in the back of the ambulance I looked around at all the pretty faces staring down at me. Am I in heaven? In this tiny space these six hotties were surrounding me like I was a Greek Goddess being fanned. Too bad they weren’t feeding me grapes, but rather IV fluid, and I wasn’t looking like any goddess, but like Night of the Living Dead!

Finally headed to Good Sam the Captain comes to sit in back with me. He asks how I’m feeling. I’m either feeling much better or at this point I’m completely delirious because I respond, “Please tell the others I’m really much cuter than this.”

He smiled.

Now in the ER my nurse, Kathy, is taking excellent care of me – she put a warm blanket on me and socks on my feet (to which I joked, “How much are these costing me – $20?” She just smiled, probably appreciating having a comedian on her hands.)

They drew blood, checked my vitals, did a vaginal exam, sucked blood out of my vag – quite gross actually, it looked like liposuction as I watched the blood come thru a tube. I almost gagged. Then they did an ultrasound and determined I still had pieces of the placenta in my uterus.

Over the next few hours my mom, my hubby and I sat in my ER room. We talked. We laughed. We slept. A man came in asking where Kathy was. I joked, “She’s hiding in my pants.”

He didn’t get it. I guess he couldn’t see my engorged penis under the warm blanket. An elderly lady in the ER did see it and asked my mom when the baby is due. They had a ten minute conversation in which my mom heard the woman’s life story. Moira was her name. We also found out she’s a “frequent flier” – that is a frequent ER visitor. She was a lonely old lady who liked to hang out in the ER.

Then we had to listen to a drunk woman who apparently assaulted her boyfriend, was arrested and then taken to the ER. Not sure what happened here as I could only hear bits and pieces…the damn cops and doctors were talking really quietly, you know because of that whole patient privacy thing. Lucky for me the crazy drunk bitch kept having wild outbursts like a Tourette’s sufferer.

“Ohmigosh!” She screamed out. “He called me 22 times? Why did he call me 22 times when he had me arrested?”

Good lord. If you think you’re crazy go hang out in the ER for a couple hours. I guarantee you’ll leave feeling more sane than you thought you were.

Finally at 5:30 a.m. I was pushed into the operating room to have a D & C performed to clean the remaining placenta out of my uterus. The doctor said it would be a 30-second procedure, and I would be home recovering within 2-3 hours.

Funny side note – I remember laying there waiting for all the team players to arrive. The doctor stood next to my bed and I said, “Wow. Seems like we should be waiting for you.”

He laughed and acted offended. “What? No, really, we’re waiting for the anesthesiologist. He is actually at home and we woke him up. He’s someone we definitely don’t want to piss off, if you know what I mean.”

“Good call,” I said, and boy, was he right! The anesthesiologist had to take blood from my neck as they were losing me. Maybe it took him so long to get to the hospital because he needed a cup of coffee?

Then I remember waking up in post-op at 10 a.m.

I couldn’t breathe. It felt like there was an elephant on my chest. Doctors and nurses were surrounding me. Arms were everywhere. I kept saying, “I can’t breathe!” I kept closing and opening my eyes.

They put oxygen on me and kept telling me to take deep breaths. I kept coughing. They did a chest x-ray in minutes and determined I had fluid in my lungs and a possible infection. More drugs in my IV, and I had to do breathing exercises out of this bong-like contraption so it wouldn’t turn into pneumonia.

An hour later I was in a room in the ICU. ICU? What the hell? I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew is that I had to take a major dump, and I offered the doctor a million dollars to let me go to the bathroom.

I’m pretty sure he thought I was both funny and charming.

The 30-second procedure had gone fine, but for some reason as they finished I started bleeding out. My blood pressure dropped to 50 over 20. It took three hours to stabilize me, and I needed to have a blood transfusion because I lost over half of my blood from my body.

No, they didn’t have to put the shockers on me and yell, “CLEAR!” (Even though that would have been kind of a cool thing to add to the blog!) But it still scared the heck out of everyone (me included) knowing that my blood pressure was so low my heart almost stopped beating. I almost died. How scary! How fucked up actually! And no, I didn’t see any white lights or anything.

The cool thing is they saved my life. Dr. Casey Morris went home that day knowing that he saved someone’s life. He saved someone’s mother. He saved ME. That’s more than I can say for my own OB whose negligence really almost cost me my life….but I can’t comment on that at this point….so says my attorney.

I was released from ICU the next evening (Monday night). I told Dr. Morris’s partner, Dr. Watson, that I didn’t want to go home. I was scared. I didn’t feel ready. I almost died! And now they want to send me home the next day? This is insane! Dr. Watson assured me that my blood counts were high and healthy. “Probably healthier than mine,” she had said.

“I guess I got some good blood,” I said.

And here we are. I am home and doing much better. I am so grateful for the outpouring love and support I’ve received from my family, friends and neighbors. I am so blessed to have so much love in my life. Thank you for the prayers. And a big thanks to Dr. Morris, all the nurses, and the (HOT!) Downers Grove EMT/Firemen for saving my life.

One thought on “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door….”

I love you and am so happy you are ok. As I enjoyed reading this, I also teared up. I am so sorry this happened to you. Was this OUR Doc??? Like MY doc?? I am so shocked and I am so sorry. Glad you are ok and here to tell about it. Damn, Jen, you are a good writer!
love ya,
Chrissy

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